Open letter to OFA NM

Dated May 3, 2012:


Dear OFA NM,

In the spring of 2008, then candidate Obama made an important promise to LGBT people.  He promised that, if elected president, he would sign an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  Four years later, President Obama has yet to live up to that promise.  The White House has announced that this order will not be signed at this time and is not a priority.  No valid reason has been given as to why the President will not sign this order.  With an overwhelming majority of voters supporting it, signing the order is not a risky move in an election year, nor is it very controversial.  Last week, we visited your office and brought you pens, thinking that perhaps the President needed a pen to sign the Executive Order.  There still has not been a signing.  This is of great concern to us.  We bring today a mock thank you card to the President from Albuquerque’s anti-LGBT Pastor Steve Smothermon, thanking the President for not standing up for LGBT people this year.  We are also bringing you some spines, because clearly it seems like our President could use a little backbone to do what is right.  The President recently told Rolling Stone Magazine, when presented with pairs of pink socks as a symbol of support and action for the LGBT community that those are “second term socks”.  We also bring pink socks in hopes that the backbones help the President to wear the socks now!

Sincerely,

New Mexico GetEQUAL